We have published three review papers covering a
broad range of topics in addiction.

The first by Pawel Jedras and colleagues, published
in Neuroscience
and Neuroeconomics (open access) examined the role of drug
anticipation in addiction and reward. They examined the available evidence,
discussing the necessary role of drug expectancy in conditioned responses to
drug-related cues, the role of impulsivity and the underlying neural circuitry
of anticipation. Finally, they provided a discussion of how perceived drug
availability can lead to poor treatment responses and what might be done to mitigate
this.

Our second review was by Margot Peeters (who visited
us from the Netherlands) with Matt Field. They conducted a narrative review,
published in Alcohol
and Alcoholism, summarising the evidence base for
cognitive impairments in heavy drinking adolescents, with an emphasis on elucidating
any causal relationship(s). They examined both cognitive impairments and
impulsivity as risk factors for alcohol use in youth, but also the possibility
that heavy drinking may cause further cognitive impairments and impulsiveness
due to neurotoxic effects on the brain.

Our final review paper was by Andy Jones and
colleagues, published in Frontiers
in Psychiatry (open access). The aim of this review
was to identify the psychological and environmental variables that may cause
state changes in (dis)inhibition leading to increases in drinking and drug use.
Some of these variables include stress, self-control depletion and exposure to
cues. They concluded that identifying these variables and targeting them for
treatments may help reduce the risk of heavy drinking, drug use and relapse.

We have also published some interesting original
research:

Paul Christiansen published a paper in Drug
and Alcohol Dependence demonstrating that individualised
stimuli may increase the predictive validity of attentional bias tasks. Using a
Stroop task containing words related to the individual’s favourite drink, they
found performance predicted variance in drinking above and beyond performance
on a Stroop using general alcohol words. This paper was a direct follow up to a
commentary Paul and Matt published in 2012.

Abi Rose and colleagues published a paper in Psychopharmacology,
investigating the relationship between alcohol-induced risk taking using the
Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) and urge to drink. They found that alcohol
increased risk taking and urge to drink. Furthermore, it was found that risk
taking after alcohol consumption mediated alcohol priming, suggesting that
those susceptible to alcohol-induced risk taking may be more likely to drink
excessively, due to an increased urge to drink.

In other news, we have been travelling around the
country to disseminate our research.

The addiction group is a core member of the UK
Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies (UKCTAS),
a leading centre of tobacco and alcohol research and policy excellence. The
inaugural meeting of UKCTAS in York in September was attended by Matt Field,
Abi Rose, Eric Robinson, Jay Duckworth, Lisa Di Lemma and Inge Kersbergen.

Andy Jones,
Eric Robinson and Matt Field also attended the UK Society for Behavioural
Medicine (UKSBM) in Oxford in December.Andy gave a poster and short oral
presentation discussing ‘Response Inhibition in everyday life. Validating a
mobile version of the Stop-Signal Task’. Eric gave an oral presentation
entitled ‘GPs don't know what obesity looks
like and this reduces their likelihood of initiating treatment’. Congratulations
to Eric, who was awarded a prestigious early
career award at
UKSBM.

We also attended the North
West Alcohol Conference, at the Hilton hotel in Liverpool
in November. Jay, Inge and Natasha did an excellent job of summarising the
conference highlights here

Finally, Matt is working as an advisor
for Alcohol Concern’s Dry
January campaign. If you are taking the challenge
yourself and finding it a bit of a struggle, you can log on to the Facebook
page or follow the Twitter feed for advice, details here

That is a wrap for this research roundup. Thank you
for reading! As always, if you would like to get in touch about anything
featured here please contact Prof.
Matt Field, and if you are interested in taking part in our
research please contact Andy
Jones.